–Fed Regrets?:Tim Duy wonders whether some at the Fed may be thinking they pulled the trigger on QE3 too soon. “I fear becoming too optimistic. During the recovery, excessive optimism has tend to result in disappointment. A month of data, after all, is just a month of data. At the same time, however, the pessimistic story is fading further into the distance. So far that some monetary policymakers might be having second thoughts about QE3. But even if they have such thoughts, and even if the hawks start chirping louder, the Fed is now committed to this path. Assuming inflation remains contained, at this point I suspect that we would need to see sustainable growth well above 3 percent in 2013 (the Fed’s central forecast is 2.5-3%) before policymakers are willing to consider pulling their foot off the gas anytime soon.”

–Global Inflation:Ed Yardeni looks at where there is inflation. “Despite the enormous amount of liquidity pumped into the global economy over the past few years by numerous central banks, inflation remains remarkably subdued around the world. Maybe governments are tampering with their measures of inflation so it is understated. If so, then it must be a widespread global conspiracy since so many inflation rates are so subdued. On the other hand, a few of those governments, particularly the central banks of the United States and Japan, have said that they would like their policies to boost inflation in order to reduce the risk of deflation. The most plausible explanation for why inflation remains so low is that the central banks so far have succeeded in offsetting, but not eliminating, some very powerful deflationary forces.”

–Cost-Benefit of Algebra:Bryan Caplan examines research on the costs and benefits of teaching algebra. “The vast majority of subjects rarely use algebra no matter how proficient they are. Look at the fractions with rehearsal scores of 0 or 1: 89% for people who studied less than calculus, 91% for people who studied calculus, and 70% for people who studied more than calculus. If the students who already take calculus don’t use it in real life, why on earth should we push weaker students to match their achievement?”

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